The army’s public relations seemed to have been very satisfactory. The soldiers were uniformly friendly and helpful toward the tourists. John Muir considered it a “pleasing contrast to the ever changing management of blundering, plundering politicians.... The soldiers do their duty so quietly that the traveler is scarce aware of their presence.”[331] Tourists called the soldiers “Swatties”; an English term in popular use at that time.
One Charles D. Warner, of New York City, was also led to rejoice that there was at least one spot in the United States where law was promptly enforced. He considered the military administration an object lesson for the whole nation in point of efficiency and impartiality.[332] Opposite reactions came from nearly all who ran afoul the law.
Perhaps the greatest weakness in the army regime was in the educational inadequacy of its personnel. About 1910 a difference in tourist interests was obvious. People, generally, began to inquire into the causes and effects of the natural phenomena. It became increasingly apparent that an effective public stewardship required knowledge of chemistry, botany, geology, zoology, and history. The reign of the “cock and bull” type of story was drawing to an end. The era of greater natural history interpretation and appreciation was dawning. Unless something could be done to educate the Park’s guardians a considerable educational opportunity would be lost, not to mention the loss of scientific solution of forest problems in general.
W. S. Chapman
Cavalry Troops in Park Patrol.
This need is clearly reflected in Captain Anderson’s report concerning geysers:
I find there is a general belief in the minds of the tourists that there is some measure of regularity in the period of eruptions of most if not all of the geysers. At various times during the last three years I have had records made by the guards of the observed eruptions. Of course, these do not include all of the geysers, nor have all of the eruptions of any one of them been noted. I enclose for publication as an appendix to this report, a table made of observation upon them during the past three years. A casual inspection of it reveals the fact that none but Old Faithful has the slightest pretense to regularity.[333]
A rhythmic regularity was there all right, but, strangely enough, it required the careful observation of the casual scientist to discover a fact which entirely escaped the more permanent, but less observant, soldiers. In 1926 the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution directed Dr. Eugene T. Allen and Dr. Arthur L. Day to make an exhaustive study of Yellowstone’s thermal features. After seven seasons of research, in cooperation with the National Park Service, they were able to publish a monumental treatise on this subject.[334] Later observations by such naturalists as George Marler, W. Verde Watson, and Herbert Lystrup not only confirmed the principle of rhythmic recurrence in many cases but discovered behavior patterns that enabled rangers to forecast a given eruption with uncanny accuracy.
Factors of this character were in the mind of Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane in 1915 when he appointed Stephen T. Mather as his assistant. Mr. Mather’s portfolio particularly related to the formulation of an integrated National Park policy.